Poll of the Week: Entering Swim Meets With Slower Seed Times (Results)

Photo by David Farr

PHOENIX, Arizona, August 6. DURING the championship season, sometimes you’ll see at various age group meets a swimmer who is well ahead of the pack in a prelim or timed final race, making him or her look like they are having the swim of their lives.

Sometimes that is true, and sometimes it’s a case of a coach putting a swimmer in a slower heat with a slower entry time than their lifetime best. This likely gives the swimmer a little confidence boost, and makes the coach look pretty good in the eyes of the parents and his peers.

But is it ethical to do this? We asked this question to you in our last poll, and overwhelmingly, the majority said no, it is NOT ethical for coaches to submit slower times to show drastic improvement with 84 percent of the votes. Sixteen percent said yes, it’s an acceptable practice.

Let’s move on now to our new poll. At the junior national championships that just finished here in the United States, several swimmers who have already qualified for senior nationals showed up to race, mostly as a rehearsal for senior nationals. They won easily in most cases, and got us thinking if this is OK to do. What do you think? If a swimmer has already qualified for senior nationals, should he or she be allowed to swim at the junior national championships? On our redesigned home page at swimmingworld.com, you’ll find our Poll of the Week on the right side of the page. We’ll keep this poll question online until next Wednesday and bring you the results on our next show.

Thanks for voting in our Poll of the Week, and thanks for watching today’s segment.

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Jeff

August 6, 2014

Of course they should be allowed at Junior Nationals. Otherwise, have to change the name from the Junior National Championships to Junior National MAX. In most cases your 18 and under Junior National Champions are not going to even final at Senior Nationals, so depriving your top younger swimmers of that invaluable experience will only hurt the sport. It is a Championship, not a summer league feel good meet.

Author: Jeff Commings

Jeff Commings is the Senior Writer for SwimmingWorld.com and Swimming World Magazine. He graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a degree in journalism and was a nine-time NCAA All-American.